Study Abroad Information: By Students for Students

I will begin hosting the new Carnival of Studying Abroad beginning March 1st.  Please contact me if you have a post you would like to submit.  This can be anything from study abroad stories to study abroad tips and advice.

When you’re a twenty-something traveler you usually bus or train around a country. But, what about when you want to drive and rent a car? Recently, we went to Ireland, but were only going to be there for a week. We wanted to see many parts of the country in just a few days. Busses were going to take too long. So, we looked into car rental. Unfortunately, when you’re under 25 (sometimes 24) every single car company requires that you pay an additional daily rate. Usually it’s around $15-$25/day. This is a huge amount, especially in the US where you can rent a car for $10-20/day. Even in Ireland car rental is not too expensive. However, we will still charged 17 Euro/day extra for being under 25. We called a number of car rental companies and there is really no way around it. Unfortunately, car rental while traveling just isn’t easy.
Moreover, in Ireland, you have to buy extra insurance. In the US and almost every other country in the world, if you pay with a credit card the credit card will cover your car insurance. Not in Ireland. Visa, Mastercard, even American Express, none will cover car insurance. Whenever you travel be sure to check with your credit card company first, to see what their car insurance policy is.
As a final note, renting a car was definitely worth it for us. While it ended up costing close to $80/day we had the flexibility to go wherever we wanted, when we wanted, and to make stops that we might have not otherwise been able to make. So , be sure to consider all factors including price and convenience, and insurance when traveling abroad.

It’s the holidays already. Thanksgiving has just passed us by and now Christmas, Hanukkah and all the jazz are going to be here before we know it. One of the hardest things about studying abroad is being away for the holidays (any kind- birthdays can be rough too). Homesickness is terrible. Honestly, we know. We’ve been there. So, we’ve developed a couple of good tips on how to overcome homesickness during the holidays.

1. Accept the fact that at some point you are going to miss home just a little bit. No matter how much your family drives you crazy, you will miss Aunt Bertha talking incessantly about Misty her Chihuahua. Trust us. Realistic expectations will help.
2. Talk to your family about what you expect from them. Are they going to send you presents? Do you want to know every last detail or would it be better if they didn’t mention all the festivities too much. (Personally, we preferred not knowing all the details. It just made us sad.) This is hard for parents. They want to email you with every detail in your life (you may have already realized this). If it makes it too hard, don’t let them.
3. Plan something fun in your host country for that day/days. Accept the invitation to a friend’s family’s house. Go to the city’s big church or synagogue—when else will you be able to go to a Christmas service at The Vatican? Maybe even plan to travel around the country you’re in or to a different country. Chances are you have a few days off from school. Enjoy it and explore.

We hope these tips will help you this holiday season. Please comment with other ideas you have!

I just stumbled across this program for High School Students: ASSE.  I’ve never seen such low costs- less than $9,000 for a year abroad.  One should look further into what those fees include, but it looks pretty good from the outset.  Also, there are a number of study abroad scholarships available.  We’ll write more about studying abroad or being an exchange student when you’re in high school another time.  But, it is definitely something to consider.

Check this out!  The University of Minnesota has gone from giving out $50,000 a year in study abroad scholarships to  $500,000 over the course of 10 years:

“Lynn Anderson, the center’s associate director, said the amount the University gives out for study abroad scholarships has increased from $50,000 to nearly $500,000 in less than a decade.”

Another reason to make sure you do a thorough search for study abroad scholarships.  Check out our awesome resource on study abroad scholarships for help on how to begin.

CNN has a report on study abroad. They report that the number of American’s studying outside of the US is the same as last year, but where people are going has shifted:

“Britain remained the most popular study destination last year, according to annual figures due for release Monday by the Institute of International Education, followed by Italy, Spain and France.

But the number of U.S. students studying in Britain and Australia declined slightly, even as the number of American students abroad rose 8 percent overall to 205,983 in 2005. The growth came in non-English speaking European countries and in Asia, which still attracts lower numbers overall but is growing rapidly.

China is now the eighth most popular destination for American students, attracting nearly 6,400 last year, up 35 percent from the year before. Though still comparably small at around 2,000 students per year, Argentina and India saw increases of more than 50 percent.”

But the article also noted that fewer international students are coming to the US to study:

“Both groups had been alarmed by slackening interest among international students in studying in the United States — a trend blamed on anti-Americanism, difficulties getting visas after the attacks and growing competition from universities abroad.

International students provide an estimated $13.5 billion boost to the economy. The Department of Commerce calls higher education the country’s fifth-largest export in the service sector.”

I wonder why that is???

Yale Daily News recently reported on the difficulties finding study abroad programs for hard science majors. They report that Yale and other Universities are looking to increase opportunities for students to go abroad:

“Officials said the addition of undergraduates to the joint program in astronomy between Yale and the Universidad de Chile is part of recent trend in academia to improve study abroad opportunities specifically meant for science majors. Only 13.4 percent of Yale students studying abroad were majoring in the physical sciences, engineering and health sciences, according to the most recently published statistics by the Yale Institute for International Education.

This trend is not just limited to Yale. On Oct. 13, a faculty panel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recommended a development of exchange partnerships with universities overseas and more flexible curricular requirements to encourage MIT students to study abroad.”

The great thing about study abroad programs is that when one university creates a new one, they usually open it up to students from other schools. So, even if your school isn’t pushing for hard science classes abroad, you may be able to piggy back on what another school is doing.

Welcome to our newly created Study Abroad Information Blog.  Here we will post new study abroad information, articles, links, and more.  Our main site will continue to have useful timeless information.  On this blog we plan to put information that may only be relevant for a short period of time.  So, check back frequently!